As this AI-controlled deer illustrates, GTA V is entertaining even when nobody is playing

Shawn Knight

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Even games like Grand Theft Auto V, with its expansive, open world and crazy antics, get stale over time. Fortunately, there's no shortage of third-party mods to spice up the action by introducing all sorts of new and interesting scenarios, items and gameplay tactics.

GTA V, however, is on another level entirely. The game has become so entertaining that you don't even need to play it (or watch others play via Twitch) to enjoy what it has to offer. Case in point is the San Andreas Streaming Deer Cam. Wait, what?

Created by Brent Watanabe, the GTA V mod consists of an invincible AI-controlled deer – created using the Script Hook V library – that roams the streets of San Andreas. That means all activity the deer partakes in is unscripted and often times, unexpected.

Watanabe notes on the cam's website that in the past 48 hours, the deer has caused a traffic jam on a major freeway, been caught in a gangland gun battle, been chased by the police and wandered along a moonlit beach.

The project is somewhat reminiscent of Twitch Plays Pokemon, the 2014 social experiment in which gamers attempted to play Pokemon via crowdsourced commands. What's different here, however, is that no human input is needed to control the deer; it just does what it wants.

As of writing, the livestream is offline but the computer that runs the mod should be back online today at 3 pm, PDT.

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This is worse than the fireplace channel around christmas season. People have too much free time and too little ambitions if they sit around watching this for any long amount of time.
 
This is worse than the fireplace channel around christmas season. People have too much free time and too little ambitions if they sit around watching this for any long amount of time.

This is a preview of a mod? ... derpaherp
 
This is worse than the fireplace channel around christmas season. People have too much free time and too little ambitions if they sit around watching this for any long amount of time.

This is a preview of a mod? ... derpaherp

The Deer Cam will ideally run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, until 4/20/2016. However, the computer crashes occasionally, and needs to be restarted. If the stream goes offline, it should be back on within several hours.

https://www.twitch.tv/bwatanabe
You were saying?
 
This is worse than the fireplace channel around christmas season. People have too much free time and too little ambitions if they sit around watching this for any long amount of time.
People do not watch the fireplace channel, they likely turn it on while hosting Christmas parties.
 
The Deer Cam will ideally run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, until 4/20/2016. However, the computer crashes occasionally, and needs to be restarted. If the stream goes offline, it should be back on within several hours.

https://www.twitch.tv/bwatanabe
You were saying?

Right, I should fully read the article in the future before commenting.

I agree in that case with your previous post. Useless, funny for 5 seconds. A waste of resources tbh.

But to each their own.
 
This is worse than the fireplace channel around christmas season. People have too much free time and too little ambitions if they sit around watching this for any long amount of time.
At least the fireplace channel has an HD video of a fireplace. Amazon Prime now has a "movie" you can play that is only the sound of a box fan, with no video. SMH
 
The Deer Cam will ideally run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, until 4/20/2016. However, the computer crashes occasionally, and needs to be restarted. If the stream goes offline, it should be back on within several hours.

https://www.twitch.tv/bwatanabe
You were saying?

Right, I should fully read the article in the future before commenting.

I agree in that case with your previous post. Useless, funny for 5 seconds. A waste of resources tbh.

But to each their own.

Funnily enough, I doubt seriously that running a computer simulation of a deer uses nearly as many resources as it would for someone to follow a deer 24/7 with a camera filming it, but people would watch that too.
 
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